


Road Trip

by desperationandgin



Category: Once Upon A Time - Fandom
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-01
Updated: 2015-06-01
Packaged: 2018-04-02 10:11:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4056154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/desperationandgin/pseuds/desperationandgin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Regina tells Emma a few tidbits about her past. Set during the great season 4B road trip.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Road Trip

The quiet in the car isn’t uncomfortable, but both women are tense. Emma because they’re on their way to rifle through Lily’s home, and Regina because, well. Zelena’s masquerading as Marian, and she had to know in that phone call, Regina wouldn’t let it stand.

_I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again very soon._

She’d even implied as much, and her tone, the way she’d sounded, it makes Regina’s stomach knot. There’s no telling what the hell might happen.

“We’re bringing her back with us.”

Emma’s been quiet for so long that the sound of her voice makes Regina startle a little. “Who?”

“Lily. She’s going back to Storybrooke. I’m taking her to Maleficent. I don’t care what it takes.”

With a sigh, Regina scoots herself up a little in the seat (God, they’re uncomfortable) and adjusts her seatbelt a bit before answering. “What’s your plan? Tell her fairy tales are real and you know her mother? Who can, by the way, turn into a giant dragon?”

“Henry did.”

“Henry’s different.  _You’re_  different.”

“How?” Emma asks, glancing over at Regina. “Maybe we’re not.”

“You let yourself get blackmailed by a ten year old,” she responds, and there may be a touch a of a smirk on her lips. “And then you were just too stubborn to leave.”

“Yeah, well you were…”

“I was what, Swan? Go ahead, speak freely. We’re past it now, right?” She’s staring at her, eyebrows raised. “I was what?”

Emma takes a deep breath, heaving a sigh as she both kicks herself for not choosing her words more carefully and tries to come up with a good answer. “It was like you flipped a switch on yourself. One minute you’re inviting me in for a drink, and the next day you’re yelling about destroying my happiness on your front porch. What the hell was that about?”

Regina’s eyes flicker back to the windshield, staring at passing rows of some crop, or maybe it’s just dead grass, she can’t be sure. And for all the dancing around Emma’s questions she’s done in the past, it doesn’t seem right anymore. “A switch was flipped. Henry’s book.”

“What? What does that mean?”

“When I originally cast the curse, I did it so I could revel in everyone’s misery and only I would know the truth. Except instead,  _I_  was miserable and everyone else was living their one day in peace.”

“Right, so you adopted Henry eighteen years later. So?”

This time, when she sinks down into the seat, Regina doesn’t push herself back up just yet. “So, once I brought Henry home…I panicked. He wouldn’t stop  _crying_. I thought something was deathly wrong with him so I had Sidney figure out who you were. I needed to know, I needed a family medical history.”

Emma’s head turns at that when they roll to a four way stop, and she just stares, not taking her foot off of the break. “Wait. You  _knew_? You knew who I was?”

“When you came to Storybrooke? No. Once I’d bonded with Henry, I couldn’t give him up again. But I couldn’t let knowing what was going to happen keep me from being his mother. So, I…cursed myself. To forget you, to forget all of my fears about the future.”

Putting the car in park, Emma turns fully to look at Regina, twisting in her seat. “You knew that in ten years, I’d be in Storybrooke and ruin everything, break your curse. But if you’d just…given Henry back, they’d all still be cursed.”

“Well. Give yourself a little credit. You’re the Savior, you were always going to break the curse. Probably. But you’re right. I could have done something, planned a way to fortify the curse, to keep the end from happening. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t give him back,” she says with a soft smile touching her lips. She sighs then, a weary sound as her head falls back against the seat. “So, when you first got to Storybrooke and you told me who you were, I reacted by inviting you inside because I truly had no idea what was happening.”

Emma’s slowly working it out, forehead knit together, lips pulled down in a frown. “So, when Henry was calling you an evil queen…”

“I had no idea why,” Regina finishes, looking at Emma. “It wasn’t until I got my hands on his book that I remembered. Which is why the next day and going forward, I was…” Wincing a little at the past memories, she squints. “…Terrible? Is that a strong enough word?”

“No,” comes Emma’s instant reply. “But it was three years ago.” Turning in her seat again, the car slides back into drive as she continues down the street. “I know sometimes the past and bringing it up is cathartic or…whatever. Right now, it isn’t. Right now, I want to focus on this. On what I know.”

“And what’s that?”

Emma glances over to find Regina looking at her intently. “You have my back. I have yours. I trust you.”

Her words, as soon as they’re spoken, make something in Regina ease, a weight she hadn’t known she was holding onto. She’s known for weeks that what they have isn’t nothing, she’s known since the night in the mansion with Henry and the books that Emma was there. With her, for her. Known she wasn’t going anywhere. Regina can’t keep a smile at bay, and as they close in on Lily’s home, she nods.

“I trust you.” 


End file.
